Gauravonomics Blog

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Here’s a great video from Ethan Zuckerman’s talk at MIT on how to find something that you aren’t looking for –

Apart from his usual talking points on serendipity, homophily, xenophilia and cultural bridging, he talks about the importance of editors by highlighting an important difference between the NYT paper edition and the NYT online edition. The front page of the NYT newspaper has 25 links, whereas the front page of the NYT online edition has 350-400 links. In the paper edition, the editor tells you to look at interesting news. In the online edition, he trusts you to find interesting news. As a result, we are less likely to look at things we aren’t looking for. That’s something to think about.

Also see: Ethan Zuckerman’s interview at The Christian Science Monitor.

Ethan Zuckerman emphasizes the need for context in citizen video –

One of the biggest discoveries we’ve made at Global Voices is the importance of context in helping people understand citizen media. Ask anyone who works on the editorial side of the project and they’ll generally tell you we do three things: filter through large sets of online content and select the stuff likely to be interesting to a broad audience; translate from other languages into English; provide sufficient context to a piece of blogpost, photo or video so that it makes sense to an audience not familiar with local events or culture.

In the same way that blogs exploded, putting the words of tens of millions of people on the web, forcing groups like Global Voices to learn how to curate, video is now growing in the developing world. Who’s curating video well? Who should we emulate and learn from in building collections of videos that help us visit different parts of the world.

Ethan is right: curating user generated video is something of a black box as of now. First, searching for such videos is difficult, because of the dependence of tagging. Second, highlighting relevant parts from such videos is even more difficult, because of limitations related to video editing. In the next 2 years, this will become a skill set with a very steep learning curve.

(Cross-posted on my fellowship blog and MobiChange)

The story on using mobile innovations for development in Africa has been unfolding for a while now, but it has become even more prominent since the Surprising Africa special at the Picnic 2008 conference in Amsterdam and the MobileActive 2008 conference in Johannesburg.

Here’s what some of the people who are writing the story on mobile-based social innovation in Africa have to say about it.

Ethan Zuckerman from Golbal Voices –

If Africa is surprising, then you’re not paying enough attention.

Jonathan Gosier from AppAfrica (link) —

For social entrepreneurs and investors, the innovation occurring here is a huge sign of progress that could potentially change the continent’s world standing forever. The most exciting aspect for me, however, is the decreased reliance on developmental aid and foreign groups to provide these solutions. The number of African developers who are beginning to create applications that offer solutions for their own communities is increasing and that, more than anything else, will shape the future of Africa.

Eric Hersman from Ushahidi (link/ slides) –